Three years ago we had the privilege of premiering a complete stream of Lunaris, the sixth album by the long-running Polish black metal band Arkona. Today we’re fortunate to host the premiere of Arkona‘s seventh album, Age of Capricorn, in a career that’s now more than a quarter-century long. If this were to become a tradition, we would be quite happy, because Arkona have once again demonstrated, in astonishing fashion, that the fires which set them ablaze so long ago have not diminished in the least, but seem to be reaching new heights of extravagance
The band’s particular formulation of black metal is by now well-established, and their devotion to it is unswerving. Their music, as manifested so powerfully in this new record, set for release on December 13th by Debemur Morti Productions, disdains the mundane and the commonplace. Delivered with dominating supremacy, it combines unchecked ferocity, emotionally powerful melody, and an atmosphere of terrible, otherworldly grandeur and shattering bleakness. It seems to embrace death and to manifest visions of what lies beyond the pathetic scrabbling of daily existence. Continue reading »